25 Years Comes To An End

The last mission of the Discovery Space Shuttle has come to an end. A sad day indeed. And it is all the sadder because our friends to the south are hard pressed to be the innovators and forward thinkers that they have always been. President Obama saw fit last year to end the Constellation Program which was to take the place of the Space Shuttle program. Obviously this economic recession that most of the world finds itself in, is detrimental to the people of the United States in more ways than one. We tend to think of people out of jobs and declaring bankruptcy, but the loss of innovative ideas like the whole Space Shuttle Program has come to be its most serious collateral damage for those of us who looked to the US for leadership in space research. The Endeavor will make a trip to the International Space Station in April and then the Atlantis will make a trip in June. There are no other scheduled trips.

Space Shuttles are amazing transportation devices. I have watched over the years the many missions of each and every one. I have to say that I looked on the Discovery's last mission with sadness in my heart. Here are a few pictures....

The most important legacy of the Space Shuttle Program is that for the first time in history we have been able to see the planet that we call home as something onto itself. It is finite and it is ours. It's blue beauty is fragile and that is what the Space Shuttle Program has been able to drive home to us over and over through the awesome pictures the astronauts have been able to take of our planet.  I love this last photo since we see the horizon of the earth in the background of the ISS. Very cool.

It is with sadness that I watch the Space Shuttle Program winding down. Manned returnable space vehicles are the legacy of the US and NASA combined efforts to lead the way in space engineering. There is likely to never again, in my time, be as rigorous a program as this. I am proud to know that it has been during my lifetime that space research has been so forward thinking.  That is not to say that NASA will not persevere with space travel programs. Currently they still have a space probe on Mars and one on the way to the outer reaches of our galaxy. But manned missions for the US are at a stand still. Let us hope, that if nothing else, the wars that torment the world and suck dry the funds of the US will come to an end so that the money that is wasted on killing each other returns to higher minded things like research into space craft.

For now we must look to the leadership of countries like Russia and India to watch the space programs that they have if our knowledge of this great universe and our place in it is to continue.

I would love to be able to get to the Smithsonian to see the Discovery at some time in my life, which is where it will be retired for those of us to view.... those of us who dream of seeing this planet in all its roundness and blueness, unhindered.